Vegetables

It saddens me when I hear people say they don’t like vegetables. I can’t help but think that they just haven’t eaten a well-prepared vegetable… Vegetables are not only healthful but they are beautiful and easily transformed into delicious menu items. With a basic understanding of these treasures and their proper cooking techniques, you will rejoice in their flavor!

Critical to great vegetable cookery is both choosing your vegetables and storing them correctly. To choose the best vegetables, I highly recommend you learn what’s in season and when. Click here to get more info on this: What’s in season?

Potatoes, onions, garlic, winter squash and tomatoes should be stored at 50-65*

Other vegetables should be refrigerated

Once cut, vegetables should be stored in water or treated with acid

And while fresh vegetables are wonderful, one can also prepare great food with alternatives such as:

Frozen vegetables – Often an excellent option which retain a tremendous amount of nutrients because they are flash-frozen very soon after being harvested (as opposed to the produce in our supermarkets which may take many, many days to get to the shelf…). To ensure high quality in your frozen vegetables, note the following:

Should be stored at 0* or below

Ice Crystals are a sign of poor handling

Leaking stains are a sign of thawing

Freezer burn results in yellowing or drying on surface

Canned vegetables – While I much prefer frozen over canned, there are some great canned options such as tomatoes and legumes. Pay mind to the following:

Keep in a cool, dry place away from sunlight

Reject damaged cans

Know the drained weight when calculating for recipes

Check the grade – sieve size is the size of individual pieces

Dried vegetables – These have a long shelf-life and can provide access to ingredients that might be prohibitively expensive when fresh (i.e. porcini mushrooms). To maximize, note the following:

Store at 75* or less

Most dried legumes need to be pre-soaked

Freeze-dried/Dehydrated mushrooms should be soaked in hot water to reconstitute

Now that we have the right vegetables, it’s important to understand that cooking vegetables impacts:

Texture

Flavor

Color

Nutrients

Here’s how…

Fiber is made firmer by:

Acid

Sugars

Fiber is softened by:

Heat

Alkalis

Pigments, the compounds that give vegetables their color, are affected differently by cooking with acid or alkalis:

Vegetables can be cooked using any of our basic techniques. Here are the procedures for the most common ways:

PROCEDURE FOR BOILING:

Add water (for most vegetables, use just enough water to cover and cook covered; however, for green vegetables and strong-flavored vegetables, use a lot of water – 2-3 times volume – and cook uncovered until just cooked)